Maternity Ward

Sunday afternoon I find myself sitting with my family next door. As usual a slow, inconsistent stream of people have entered into our concession to saluer; most of the time I sit quietly saying the little local language I know and occasionally listening to my Maman. I usually sit in my chair that has been fashioned out of narrow sticks in forced into a laid back position that is most comfortable, occasionally pausing to call over Bennie or Izzy, the chions. I make a kissing noise to get their attention, and almost immediately they come dashing over, toppling over each other in jealousy trying to be the first to reach me. On this particular Sunday, after one lady has left, my mother says to me so and so is having a baby.

I never feel like I know who is who. I recognize faces, but know very few names. I can’t feel too bad though, just the other day my neighbor called me la blanche, she still didn’t know my name after a couple months. So when my Maman said someone had a baby I did not try to rack my brain on relations.

Going on an outing is always a culmination of false starts. It starts like this: Jamie, we are going out, or my favorite, so and so is sick or in this instance so and so had a baby. Then my Maman will stand up. Her stating an event happened more often than not means she is going out. But she says it as we are going out, but she uses the third person plural form of aller, suggesting they are going out, but then I remind myself that the subject “on” is we—I can never keep subjects and verbs straight. Notice she does not ask, Jamie do you want to go with me? It is more an announcement, not even really a command. It is a peculiarity, which can be confusing, because inevitably I want to make sure I have been invited. By asking for a clarification though, then my Maman thinks I don’t want to go with her, which leads to me having to exude a high level of excitement about the prospects of going out. You can see the relief in my Maman’s face. It is so interesting to observe a person, especially when half the time you have no idea what they are saying. I find myself learning and understanding so much more about my Maman than I could really know by talking with her.

She is prideful and traditional in many ways. I notice that she can be easily offended, but has a passive way of expressing this. She is like many people in a lot of way, but what is interesting is how her kindness comes in conflict with her pride. For example, our other neighbor asks for things all the time, and my mother gives generously. One day the neighbor had a mini-fete for somebody or others sister or husband—again I am horrible at keeping track of who is who. The neighbor practically prepared everything over in our concession, but failed to invite my Maman over. So my Maman was very put off by this. I don’t think it was so much that she wanted the food, but it was the principle of the event. It is proper to invite the person over. Throughout the day my Maman complained about this, and went as far to say she was cutting the neighbor off cold turkey the following day. I never feel like I give quite the reaction my Maman wants in situations such as these. This event actually occurred the same day we intended to set off the maternity center—I watched the midwife’s reaction to this story, and now I try to mimic that response—“Tu a raison.”

Once I have understood my presence is required to an outing the next hurdle to cross is when we will leave. Normally it is within a five to twenty minute time frame. Many factors come into play, each of us has to change, or I have to change, which gives my Maman time to get involved with some other task, which inevitably leads to her yelling at one of the girls over what I can only deduce to be because they are moving to slow. On the specific occasion of going over to the maternity ward though, we wait longer—I am in the process of washing the two week old puppies, which have an absurd number of fleas. Since I was younger I have had a strange obsession with killing all fleas on cats and dogs. Then of course I have to wash off and change after I finish. The sun is on its way down when we finally set off to the maternity center.

At the maternity center it is like my Maman has come home, or arrived at a high school reunion where the classmates actually like each other. She knows everyone, and those she doesn’t know she gets in their business just the same. She gives orders, corrects the new mothers as they try breastfeeding for the first time. I feel grateful that before I left my best friend had a baby, so I know a little about what goes on at this point in a person’s life.

No one can say that Matéri is not doing their part to keep the animal population up. I mean there are babies everywhere. Women, dogs, cats, chickens, guinea hens, spiders; they are all producing, and no one blinks—this is life, literally.

The maternity center faces the outskirts of the marche, which is lined with mini-boutiques. Don’t think boutiques like you’d find in small coastal tourist towns that are filled with useless knick-knacks and local artisan jewelry way over priced. Think the local country convenience store, without the fish bait and mini-grand display of American candy. Like most buildings here the maternity center is cement. You could plop this village right in the middle of tornado alley without a worry.

We cross through some construction work to a room with seven beds. Each bed has metal rods shooting up from the head and foot of it, where the mosquito nets will be attached. At the moment they are bare. These posts loom like a needy insecure teenage girl, who no one will take notice of, despite all her good intentions and security. Although there are seven beds, only six have firm, rubber like mattresses, five are occupied by new mothers. I have long ago given up on guessing the age of Beninese people, but I know these mothers are either the same age as me, but most likely younger.

Very few weeks go by when I am not asked if I am married. One man was very puzzled when I replied, “No I wasn’t married, and no I did not have kids.” I can’t be certain, although I am, and just prefer to be in denial, but that man pointed at my large breasts as a sure sign I was lying and I did in fact have kids. Among the many follow up questions after saying I am not married are, “Why not?.” When I say I am too young and then give me age, they look at me like I haven’t the slightest inclination of what young means. I suppose I don’t when other volunteers have been offered 14 year olds as wives, without the slightest hesitation or shame from the Beninese. I guess it should be no surprise why most men who approach me as jeepers creepers are much older than me. Cougars wouldn’t stand a real chance here. I suppose I welcome a pity parade when I say I am too young to marry, and the Beninese offer up finding me a Beninese man. It puts me in a spot. I can’t say no, because they will think I only want to marry a white man. I can’t say yes, because they might offer themselves. This is just taking their opinion into consideration. Of my own mind I can’t say yes because deep down I know exactly what the men here think of woman, and no amount of western thought on my end would change that I fear. Plus the looks and impolite remarks I have born witness to since being here has spoiled the whole lot for me, as callous as that sounds.

I will be honest though, as uncomfortable as all this is, and boy does it get to me on some days, it is not such an unfamiliar feeling. The questions and culture are different, but the meaning and implications aren’t so different than the States, when a family member asks, “If I have a boyfriend yet?” or if I meet a guy, and he inevitably questions “Why I haven’t been snatched up yet?” The latter question is always an indication that guy is a girlfriend snatcher. And while very few American men are looking to colonize me in the same sense as a Beninese man, meaning making babies and then taking other wives, there is another cultural card at play. Maybe it’s me, but experience says men have rarely really liked me for who I am, although they say so. No, right away, they like me for what they see I could be for them. What this all adds up to is my own criticism of myself, which is that, forgive me, I don’t fall into the more “traditional” female role at this point in my life.

So here I was in the maternity ward around women, who were living up to their roles in society. I saluer all of them, and they stare back at me. Staring is a cultural norm here, which I have come to love—my friends in the States have commented on this habitual flaw of mine, so in a way Benin is coming home for my eyes. We don’t say much beyond hello and me commenting on their babies being pretty or handsome.

As my Maman washes one of the newborns, I sit alone on the lone empty bed in the maternity center. The other mothers are taking turns bathing, while my Maman tends to their new borns. I sit quietly, the 23 year old white woman; the only woman teacher at the school; the woman who gets fed first like the other men in the village; the woman who has yet to bare any children and sees nothing wrong with that; the woman who despite knowing the cultural norms feels pity for these mothers. I know I should feel shame. I look listlessly around, trying to pretend I belong here.

The faces of the new mothers I think may haunt me for a long while. I imagine what I saw hidden in their stares, and how I felt about it and ask, “Was their gaze a result of what they saw in mine? They were exhausted, moving slowly about the room, and one could easily mistake this as the result of giving birth the same day. But no. In their eyes I saw girls whose souls had been stolen from them, without them knowing they had lost them. How could they when this is all they know in their culture? I think back to the first days in Cotonou, the poverty I saw, and still witness everyday. I have pity and sorrow, but get by knowing that this is all these people may ever know, and therefore they don’t know how poor they really are.

My Maman has finished cleaning the first newborn, and handed it over to me, all bundled in clothes it looks like it will never be capable of growing into. I haven’t held a baby this small since my best friend had her girl over a year ago. I am reminded of the fragility of human beings at this young age. I feel calm and tranquil. I have witnessed how some of the babies here are man handled, and know I carry a feeling not many woman here can have or ever know, and that is the choice to hold a baby or not. The baby sleeps easily. It is hungry, I know as it turns its head toward my breast. I give it my finger to grasp onto.

The women around me seem surprised by the baby’s ease and my own. I suspect they think since I don’t have children I don’t care for them or know how to manage them. I look around occasionally at the other mothers, and I feel not only pity, but jealousy. I feel like tears are trying to make their way into my eyes, but they don’t quite reach the point of even forming. It is a bitter sweet thought that causes this sensation. Around women who will most certainly go on to have more babies, I am here, knowing I can make choices and may have already made some choices—although I am young—that may result in me never having a baby. Whose souls are truly at a loss now?